Thank you very much, Dr. Mann. This is what makes Marine Biology so much fun!

I've been meaning to say for a long time that I very much enjoyed your article on the History of Marine Biology. For anyone who hasn't read it, it's in the group's files section. And in case anyone is interested and missed it (one of our members posted this at some point, and it's so much fun to just browse through the engravings) you can read the Voyage of the Beagle at Project Gutenberg online:

Have taken the liberty of forwarding your photo + request to an associate of mine in British Colombia. He's rather good at this type of identification and will let you know any results!

--- In MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL@yahoogroups.com, "dancelass" <hermissendra@...> wrote: > > I forgot to say, I decided to post the picture in the Identification help photo album. Thanks again! > > > --- In MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL@yahoogroups.com, "dancelass" <hermissendra@> wrote: > > > > Greetings all! > > > > I'm not sure if file attachments will work here, but I'm at my wit's end on an invertebrate that I can't identify. I thought it was a bryozoan of some sort, or possibly a sponge, but haven't found anything that resembles the texture/pores/markings/? on this. Ironically I'm giving a short presentation on the unique difficulties posed by convergent structures in identifying rocky intertidal organisms. (to begin with, just figuring out if it is the proverbial animal or vegetable! *laugh*) So I went to the coast to take some pictures for demonstration. > > I found this guy at a moderately negative tide at Seal Rock, near Newport, Oregon. It was on the protected side of a rock in the low intertidal zone. You can see there is encrusting algae and purple encrusting sponge Haliclona ecbasis, in addition to some other encrusting animals including tube worms. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have. I've tried searching photos of encrusting bryozoans, hydroids, sponges, tunicates. I am not an expert, just a volunteer naturalist who's starting to lose it a bit. :) > > > > Thanks for any help you can offer! > > Cindy in Portland, Oregon > > >

INFECTIOUS HEMATOPOIETIC NECROSIS, SALMON - USA: (WASHINGTON) ************************************************************* A ProMED-mail post <http://www.promedmail.org> ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org>

A deadly fish virus known to affect wild salmon has hit a Peninsula fish farm, forcing American Gold Seafoods to kill the entire stock of Atlantic salmon it had at its Bainbridge Island site, and triggering concerns of a possible spread of the disease among fish in the Salish Sea.

Tests earlier this month [May 2012] confirmed the presence of an influenza-like virus called infectious hematopoietic necrosis, or IHN, in the fish contained in 2 acres [0.8 ha] of nets near the shores of Bainbridge Island.

The virus does not affect humans but occurs in wild sockeye salmon and can be carried by other fish, such as herring, that sometimes pass through fish net pens, affecting the farmed fish.

It first appeared in 2 British Columbia fish farms, forcing the destruction of almost 600 000 fish, the Kitsap Sun reported.

Tests on the Bainbridge fish came back positive for the virus this month [May 2012], after fish farm employees noticed a higher than usual die-off in April.

The company's Port Angeles pens are on Ediz Hook, near the Coast Guard Air Station/Sector Field Office Port Angeles.

No company representatives answered phones at the Port Angeles hatchery Sunday [26 May 2012], but the company website <http://www.americangoldseafoods.com> lists the pens at Port Angeles as being "juvenile pens."

John Kerwin, fish health supervisor for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the virus is a big concern. "Any 1st time it occurs, you don't fully understand the impact to wild fish," Kerwin said. "We know it can impact (farm) fish. If we move fast, we can try to minimize the amplification."

American Gold Seafoods plans to remove more than a million pounds of Atlantic salmon from infected net pens in Rich Passage off the southern tip of Bainbridge Island.

"It's a very, very big loss for us," Alan Cook, Icicle's vice president of aquaculture said. "We'll clean up and start again." The company plans to remove all dead or dying fish by the end of June 2012. Nets from 2 acres' worth of pens will be removed and disinfected. The fish farm could be running again in 4 months.

Cook said the company has increased monitoring of net pens in Clam Bay near Manchester in Puget Sound, which is about a half-mile from the infected pens.

Even though the virus occurs naturally in Northwest salmon, the group worries that densely packed fish farms can amplify the virus's spread, foster its mutation, and infect wild fish that pass in or near the pens.

Cook said his company is taking the virus seriously. Its plan to remove all the farm's fish is not required by law, he said. "It's good husbandry to limit the risk to other fish," he said. "We're not letting the situation sit and fester and then explode."

Adding another disease outbreak to the list of threats to wild salmon concerns local fishermen. "They have enough problems right now," said Curtis Reed, manager of the Waters West Fly Fishing Outfitters in Port Angeles.

Local fishermen are more concerned with the sea lice problem in salmon, which is concentrated by the salmon in pens and then can infect young wild salmon as they pass by the pens on their way out to sea, Reed said.

[IHN virus is a rhabdovirus that causes acute, systemic disease in salmonid fish and also occurs in asymptomatic fish hosts. The virus is currently endemic throughout the Pacific Northwest of North America, with a contiguous range extending from Alaska to California and inland to Idaho. Within this geographical area the host range of IHNV includes 5 species of Pacific salmon, Atlantic salmon, and several trout species. The 1st reported epidemics of IHNV occurred in sockeye salmon (_Oncorhynchus nerka_) fry at Washington and Oregon fish hatcheries during the 1950s.

Because farmed salmon are kept at high densities, stress and high pathogen density may act in synergy predisposing the fish to develop clinical disease. As the virus is native to that region, farmed salmon infected with IHNV does not seem to represent a major concern for native wild populations, as would a foreign virus such as infectious salmon anemia. Portions of this comment were extracted from Kurath et al. (2003; J Gen Virol 84: 803-14).

DOLPHIN DIE-OFF - PERU (02): MORBILLIVIRUS, NOT *********************************************** A ProMED-mail post <http://www.promedmail.org> ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org>

The mass die-off of nearly 900 dolphins and porpoises along Peru's coast remains unsolved, Peru's government marine research agency says.

Tuesday's [22 May 2012] final report by the Sea Institute ruled out viral and bacterial infections, human intervention, pesticides or heavy metals as causes for the deaths, which were 1st noticed on 7 Feb 2012 and continued through mid-April [2012]. It speculated that biotoxins, algae blooms, or an unknown emerging disease could be to blame.

The Peruvian environmental group Orca, which 1st alerted the public to the deaths, insists that seismic testing used in oil exploration was likely the cause.

But the institute said that experts found no evidence any of the deaths were a result of seismic soundings, which involve shooting compressed air at the sea floor: There were no signs of internal hemorrhages or brain lesions that would be compatible with damage from such tests. But it said it did notice damage to some plankton where the soundings were done.

Orca contested those findings in its own report on Tuesday [22 May 2012], saying it had independently confirmed hemorrhages and middle-ear infections as well as the presence of air bubbles in internal organs and severe lung damage.

Several leading Peruvian scientists complained that the government agency was late in gathering samples, making it harder to determine the cause of death because the tissue tested was so badly decomposed.

The Sea Institute based its findings on autopsies of just 2 dead dolphins, which were collected in mid-April [2012], while Orca said it gathered the 1st of the samples it tested on 12 Feb [2012].

Seismic testing in the area was conducted between 7 Feb and 8 Apr [2012] by Houston-based BPZ Energy.

The institute report said the testing occurred 50 to 80 miles (80 to 130 km) off shore and that the equipment used was calibrated in those waters between 31 Jan and 7 Feb [2012].

It said testing also ruled out morbillivirus, a type of distemper that some government officials had suggested as a likely cause long before kits arrived from the United States to check for it.

[The findings are difficult to judge without examining both reports. A concomitant pelican die-off due to malnutrition and parasites occurred along the same coastline (see ProMED post 20120506.1124416). It is unknown whether both events are related, but seismic exploration would not affect pelicans in this way, at least directly. Can seismic exploration cause a lack of the main food item for pelicans, the Peruvian anchoveta?

Have taken the liberty of forwarding your photo + request to an associate of mine in British Colombia. He's rather good at this type of identification and will let you know any results!

--- In MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL@yahoogroups.com, "dancelass" <hermissendra@...> wrote: > > I forgot to say, I decided to post the picture in the Identification help photo album. Thanks again! > > > --- In MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL@yahoogroups.com, "dancelass" <hermissendra@> wrote: > > > > Greetings all! > > > > I'm not sure if file attachments will work here, but I'm at my wit's end on an invertebrate that I can't identify. I thought it was a bryozoan of some sort, or possibly a sponge, but haven't found anything that resembles the texture/pores/markings/? on this. Ironically I'm giving a short presentation on the unique difficulties posed by convergent structures in identifying rocky intertidal organisms. (to begin with, just figuring out if it is the proverbial animal or vegetable! *laugh*) So I went to the coast to take some pictures for demonstration. > > I found this guy at a moderately negative tide at Seal Rock, near Newport, Oregon. It was on the protected side of a rock in the low intertidal zone. You can see there is encrusting algae and purple encrusting sponge Haliclona ecbasis, in addition to some other encrusting animals including tube worms. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have. I've tried searching photos of encrusting bryozoans, hydroids, sponges, tunicates. I am not an expert, just a volunteer naturalist who's starting to lose it a bit. :) > > > > Thanks for any help you can offer! > > Cindy in Portland, Oregon > > >

SPONGE ORANGE BAND - USA (02): (FLORIDA) ***************************************** A ProMED-mail post <http://www.promedmail.org> ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org>

From Sombrero Reef down in the Keys to the waters of West Palm Beach, red barrel sponges are disintegrating at worrisome rates. The culprit is unknown, and state scientists are busy trying to figure out just how widespread the disease outbreak is.

At the end of April [2012], Ed Tichenor of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue first observed sponges disintegrating. By the 1st week of May [2012], he confirmed that the sponges, an animal, were dying from Breakers Reef in Palm Beach south to at least Delray Beach.

Now, officials with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission confirm with New Times that similar observations have been made in waters off Broward, Key Biscayne, and the Florida Keys.

"We are trying to get a handle on the extent of how widespread the disease outbreak is right now," says Rob Ruzicka, program manager at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. "As far as we can tell, this is the largest event we've seen so far, at least in Florida."

It's unclear what's actually killing the sponges. Scientists have dubbed the syndrome 'sponge orange band', which only describes the symptoms, but they haven't been able to confirm the actual pathogen responsible.

"It's totally possible that whatever is causing the disease here could spread to the rest of the Caribbean in a matter of months or a year," Ruzicka says. "We might just be witnessing the very early stages of something larger... We need to find out if it's a widespread pandemic and, if so, how much of the sponge population it is affecting."

Another aspect researchers are trying to determine is whether the phenomenon has moved south toward the Keys or north along the reef tract.

"Typically, you look up-current," says Tichenor of Palm Beach County Reef Rescue. "I'm suggesting that we need to look at what's coming out of the Gulf of Mexico."

Tichenor says the 1st step should be to conduct what's called a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) analysis, a test to determine if PAH are in the water. Strong pollutants, PAHs are present in crude-oil deposits, among other things.

"If this is a containment, I think sponges are likely the 1st organism to be impacted because they're filtering the water. That's what they do," Tichenor says. "It seems that whatever they're filtering out of the water is killing them. The question now is what's in the water."

Ruzicka and state officials will be heading to the Dry Tortugas to inspect the waters in the coming weeks, and they'll be checking back on the upper and lower Keys through June and July [2012]. Tichenor will continue to monitor the local waters.

[The etiology of the sponge orange band syndrome is still unknown. Attempts to gather evidence that incriminates a single microbial agent have failed. The disease is, however, strongly associated with high or low temperatures. The hypothesis that coral reef diseases are basically opportunistic infections secondary to physiological stress (such as caused by pollutants or increasing water temperature) appears to be the most supported one.

I forgot to say, I decided to post the picture in the Identification help photo album. Thanks again!

--- In MARINE_BIOLOGY_INTERNATIONAL@yahoogroups.com, "dancelass" <hermissendra@...> wrote: > > Greetings all! > > I'm not sure if file attachments will work here, but I'm at my wit's end on an invertebrate that I can't identify. I thought it was a bryozoan of some sort, or possibly a sponge, but haven't found anything that resembles the texture/pores/markings/? on this. Ironically I'm giving a short presentation on the unique difficulties posed by convergent structures in identifying rocky intertidal organisms. (to begin with, just figuring out if it is the proverbial animal or vegetable! *laugh*) So I went to the coast to take some pictures for demonstration. > I found this guy at a moderately negative tide at Seal Rock, near Newport, Oregon. It was on the protected side of a rock in the low intertidal zone. You can see there is encrusting algae and purple encrusting sponge Haliclona ecbasis, in addition to some other encrusting animals including tube worms. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have. I've tried searching photos of encrusting bryozoans, hydroids, sponges, tunicates. I am not an expert, just a volunteer naturalist who's starting to lose it a bit. :) > > Thanks for any help you can offer! > Cindy in Portland, Oregon >

I'm not sure if file attachments will work here, but I'm at my wit's end on an invertebrate that I can't identify. I thought it was a bryozoan of some sort, or possibly a sponge, but haven't found anything that resembles the texture/pores/markings/? on this. Ironically I'm giving a short presentation on the unique difficulties posed by convergent structures in identifying rocky intertidal organisms. (to begin with, just figuring out if it is the proverbial animal or vegetable! *laugh*) So I went to the coast to take some pictures for demonstration. I found this guy at a moderately negative tide at Seal Rock, near Newport, Oregon. It was on the protected side of a rock in the low intertidal zone. You can see there is encrusting algae and purple encrusting sponge Haliclona ecbasis, in addition to some other encrusting animals including tube worms. Unfortunately this is the only picture I have. I've tried searching photos of encrusting bryozoans, hydroids, sponges, tunicates. I am not an expert, just a volunteer naturalist who's starting to lose it a bit. :)

UNDIAGNOSED DIE-OFF, DOLPHIN - RUSSIA, UKRAINE: BLACK SEA ********************************************************* A ProMED-mail post <http://www.promedmail.org> ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases <http://www.isid.org>

Hardly a day goes by in Sochi, Russia's picturesque Black Sea resort, without a dead dolphin washing up on the beach. With the tourist season just kicking off, the unexplained deaths have yet to draw much scrutiny. But environmentalists are increasingly alarmed.

The dolphin carcasses are also turning into a real holiday spoiler for vacationers drawn to the region's scenic beaches and pristine vistas. Russian tourist Aida Kobzh was shocked to discover a group of dead dolphins last week [week of 21 May 2012] at her local beach in Sochi. "Everyone stood there and stared at the dead little dolphins lying belly up. Poor creatures!" Kobzh said. "There were some on the beach but also in the water; they were floating there, dead."

The dolphins started washing up along Russia's Black Sea coast several weeks ago. They have also been spotted on Ukrainian shores. Environmentalists are now talking about the biggest dolphin die-off to date in the region, with an estimated 300 animals dead so far.

Local authorities have made no serious attempt to investigate the deaths, saying the animals are too decayed by the time they reach the shore for laboratory tests to be conducted.

Officials have blamed poachers and fishing nets. They say the unusually cold winter has driven dolphins from the Sea of Azov to the warmer Black Sea.

Some experts, like local zoologist Konstantin Andramonov, point to a possible killer virus. "The death toll is constantly growing, unfortunately," Andramonov says. "We are now witnessing the same in Ukraine. There is a hypothesis that we are dealing with an infectious disease that occurs roughly every 20 years."

Most experts, however, believe the real culprit is ever-increasing pollution in the Black Sea region. Valery Brinikh, who works for the prominent environmental group Ecological Watch, says the scale of the dolphin deaths belies official accounts faulting poachers and fishing nets. "This happens every year in Sochi; sometimes there are more deaths, sometimes fewer," Brinikh says. "But the scale this time suggests unnatural causes, probably sea pollution or a loss of orientation of the dolphins, which can also be linked to pollution."

Environmentalists say pollution levels have risen dramatically around Sochi since the city was selected to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. They have long warned that unbridled construction is inflicting irreparable ecological damage to Sochi's unique ecosystem.

Olga Noskovets, a local ecologist, suspects that the authorities are perfectly aware it is pollution that is killing the dolphins. She says pollution levels are highest in areas close to the Olympic construction sites that dot Sochi and its outskirts. According to Noskovets, the most affected area is Sochi's Lazarevsky district, where tourist Aida Kobzh recently spotted the dead dolphins.

"The biggest hazard is posed by a river that runs through the Lazarevsky district, an area with a high concentration of sanatoriums, including for children," says Noskovets. "The infamous Olympic dump lies nearby, and it has no waste-treatment system. This small mountain stream, which used to have fish, is now cloudy, brown and foamy. It collects waste and carries it to beaches that once counted among the most beautiful in the area."

Noskovets says the dolphin die-off should act as a wake-up call. She says the authorities must urgently sound the alarm and warn visitors about the health hazards of bathing on certain Black Sea beaches before the tourist season reaches its peak.

"If sea creatures that are adapted to life in the sea react this way, what will the consequences be for humans?" Noskovets says. "Every year, numerous people suffer poisoning incidents after bathing in the sea, and these are always blamed on food poisoning. It is a nasty lie from our authorities, who are afraid of telling the truth, that the Black Sea is simply being poisoned."

[See the list of posts below that report other recent, and mostly unsolved, dolphin die-offs around the world.

We might be witnessing another consequence of human activity and global environmental change on wildlife health. Most likely, the culprit is not a single cause but many interacting in synergy. For example, it might be a disease outbreak boosted by impoverishment of the condition of the dolphins due to pollution.

In 2009, there was a dolphin die-off in the Black Sea, and a morbilivirus was suspected. - Mod.PMB

Sydney, NSW  An international team of scientists has gathered the first conclusive evidence that marine reserves can help restock exploited fish populations on neighbouring reefs which are open to both commercial and recreational fishing.

The groundbreaking study was carried out in the Keppel Island group on Australia's Great Barrier Reef by researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CoECRS), in conjunction with other leading research institutions, and is reported in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology.

Its findings help to resolve a long-running debate in Australia and worldwide about whether marine reserves, areas closed to all forms of fishing, can help to replenish fish numbers in areas left open to fishing.

Using DNA fingerprinting technology, the team of scientists tracked the dispersal pathways of baby coral trout and stripey snappers from the marine reserves in the Keppel island group where they were spawned. They found that a very large proportion of baby fish settled on reefs in areas that are open to fishing, up to 30 kilometres from the place they were spawned. Most of the baby fish settled within 1-5kms of reserves but a significant proportion dispersed 10 kilometres or more to find a new home.

"We found that the marine reserves, which cover about 28 percent of the 700 hectare reef area of the Keppels, had in fact generated half the baby fish, both inside and outside of the reserves," says lead author Hugo Harrison, of CoECRS and James Cook University. "The study provides conclusive evidence that fish populations in areas open to fishing can be replenished from populations within marine reserves."

Team leader Professor Geoff Jones adds "We've known for some time that if you close an area of reef to fishing, both fish numbers and sizes within the reserve increase. But the fate of the offspring of fish in the reserves has been a long-standing mystery. Now we can clearly show that the benefits of reserves spread beyond reserve boundaries, providing a baby bonus to fisheries."

The research establishes proof-of-concept for the idea that setting aside networks of marine reserves within a larger managed ecosystem like the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, can simultaneously provide significant fishery and conservation benefits.

Local recreational fishers worked with the research team to sample adult fish populations within the reserves. Recreational fishing sector representative and manager of the CapReef program Bill Sawynok says "Local fishers who assisted in the project have been keenly anticipating the results for some time."

Co-author Professor Garry Russ adds "Networks of marine reserves on coral reefs are a central strategy for ensuring food security for millions of people in the Coral Triangle region, just to the north of Australia. This study in the Keppel Islands, for the first time, demonstrates that reserve networks can contribute substantially to the long-term sustainability of coral reef fisheries, and thus to food security and livelihoods in the region."

The researchers conclude "The fact that local fishing communities can directly benefit from a source of recruitment from their local reserves is the strongest support yet that reserve networks can be an effective tool for sustaining future generations of both fish and fishers."

Hobart, TAZ  Marine and terrestrial species will likely differ in their responses to climate warming, new research by Simon Fraser University and Australia's University of Tasmania has found.

The study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, provides insights into why and how species are moving around the globe in response to global warming.

Researchers gathered published data from tests determining the physiological temperature limits -- tolerance to heating and cooling levels -- on 169 cold-blooded marine and terrestrial species, then compared the data with the regions the species inhabit.

They found that while marine animals closely conformed to the temperature regions they could potentially occupy, terrestrial species live farther from the equator than their internal thermometers suggest they can live. In other words warm temperatures aren't limiting them from living in closer to the equator.

"Finding that marine and terrestrial species are limited by their cold tolerance suggest that warming will allow expansions of animals towards the poles to take advantage of newly opened up habitats," says lead author Jennifer Sunday, a biologist from Simon Fraser University, Canada.

"However because land animals are not limited by heat to the same extent as marine animals, patterns of retreat in the hottest regions of species' ranges may differ between land and sea."

The research team found that while both the cold and warm boundaries of marine species are marching towards the poles, terrestrial species have been less responsive at their warm versus their cold range boundaries.

"We think a combination of things is going on," says Amanda Bates, co-author from the University of Tasmania's Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS). "A species niche isn't just set by temperature. On land where water is key, species may be hindered more by dryness rather than being too hot at this range boundary.

"Second, it could be that rare heat waves are actually setting boundaries on where species can live. Finally, as Charles Darwin pointed out over 150 years ago, there may be more species and much more ecological competition toward the tropics, which may be enough to exclude species from living in the warmer end of their potential real estate."

The authors call for research to better understand how climate change will affect animals, especially those on land where predicting responses to warming may be particularly difficult.

"Terrestrial species ranges may stretch towards the poles -- expanding their cold range boundaries but responding erratically at their warm boundaries," says Nicholas Dulvy, a marine biologist at SFU.

"These individuals will be overrun by the 'pole-wards' march as other species enter their territories. So we will see all sorts of new ecology as species come into contact and interact as never before."

The team concludes by pointing out that while chaotic species combinations may be bad news for animals on land, entire assemblages of species are likely to shift in the ocean, meaning researchers can make better predictions about how marine species redistribute in the face of climate change.